Running

decent length for a x country that. ours came in at under 5 miles yesterday, a disappointment after a shortened kent champs last week as well. Not ideal prep for the southerns or National.

Had a decent race to get my best Surrey League position despite a hill out the back nearly destroying me on the final lap.

Gentle 18 this morning. Marathon prep is going well.

I can't find our guy (5,Spenser Lane) on the tracking thing. hopefully just because iam not using the tracker very well.

Nice one - I couldn't run a bath this morning let alone 18miles!

Spenser is here according to the tracker, near Keighley:

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Interesting view from a dnf'er, esp if he'd been slower he'd have avoided some trouble

http://marcusscotney.com/dnf-on-the-2015-spine-challenger/

The guys I know have called it quits at Gargrave. Apparently it's bad enough they're making route changes for the longer race so they are lower off the tops so sheltered a bit in places.

My new years resolution was to run 100 miles across January.. After a couple of weeks averaging 5km a day I took things up a level last night and did a slow 17km (my previous longest run was 12km).

Cold, windy, dark but I did see a fox which always cheers me up for some reason.

puts me dangerously close to a half marathon distance though so I now want to finish January with a 21km. Struggled putting my socks on this morning however, so I'll stick to 5km tonight.

10.6km down to Richmond Park and back up via Putney Heath, enjoyed that.

Strava says new best 10k time of 56:08, not bad for a fat bloke like me. Will probably do a 6k run on Wednesday before the full 12km run in to work Thursday morning. Then next week I'll be up to the full hour on my Wednesday run (got a nice flatish 11km route that takes in the Wimbledon Common Parkrun course in the middle).

Ran into work for the first time this morning. Don't want to reduce the time I spend on the bike but really enjoyed it. I have 0mm drop shoes and it was odd to swop them for my work shoes which have a decent heel. I was really conscious of the difference for the first hour or so.

I saw that Pen Y Ghent was taken off the route.

Spenser still seems to be going. SOme way off Pavel though.

Rest day in marathon training so did some core and upper body circuits. Has anyone tried it? Got anything to say for whether or not it works?

@smithchild sounds like some good running. Do the half marathon now if you feel you can. There is no point in waiting until the end of the month.

I feel like core stuff helps. Hard to judge seeing as I seem to be unable to motivate myself to do it consistently over a long enough period to notice.

Sounds like they're holding all runners at CP3 until it's safe to carry on, times will be credited for the delay or something. Pavel must be an animal to be 11h ahead of 2nd place by looks of it tho!

Forecast remains terrible.

Re: Upper & Core, one of my mates at Survival of the Fittest said "there's no point being able to run for the bus if you can't carry your shopping..."

It's on my list of good intentions.

they are some hardcore muthafuckas on that spine race

Me n U next year yeah?

(jokez)

yeah ok
no i know some guys that do the Edale skyline and stuff, some dark peak runners,
its an awesome horseshoe, havent got the cute Ruth to take up from Sheffield onto the hill anymore, or excuse of going to Castleton for 'work' anymore #happydays #nostalgiasnotwhatitusedtobe

My training runs all seem to be close to PBs or actual PBs at the moment (according to Strava, at least).

Either I've not been trying previously, or I'm trying too hard now.

More mile repeats at the track this eveining, then heading to Dorney this weekend for an overpriced group start 10k.

It will be intredasting to see what my first actual race pace 10k time will be - I'd like to say that I'll do 45 minutes, but I've never run that far or fast.

I ran a 46 minute tempo run last week, and although it wasn't quite at threshold, I'm not sure how much faster I could have gone.

You can always squeeze a bit more out in a 'race'.

I had the same thing last year. Set a whole load of PBs (STrava PBs so relatively recent timespan). Mainly for Shorter stuff. I put it Down to moving from running for Health, to running for Fitness. Not intentionally, and I certainly wasnt trying to get faster. Only really noticed when strava/TP told me. But instead of heading out for a jog, lasting whatever amount of time I had free. I was considering how much time I had and adjusting my effort to match. So the short stuff got faster.

My New years resolution is to Train smarter. Which is what is was last year. So moar smarter!

Yeah, core work is worth it. May not feel it when pootling, but try racing up a hill it makes a big difference. Also helps avoid injury over the longer distances.

good luck with your race!

Any suggestions for a basic GPS watch? Nice and easy to use, can upload to some form of tracking website (or preferably to a variety rather than one proprietary one), preferably not too big or ugly.

Cheers

Your a race

Depends what functionality you want.

Do you care about seeing your current pace on the watch? (If yes then don't get a Forerunner 110 as it only displays average pace).

If you just want to see your HR, distance, elapsed time and average pace then a Garmin Forerunner 110 is pretty basic (and about £70 if you've already got a Garmin HR strap).

My dog loves her Forerunner 110 :-)

(previously my GF's 110)

Cheers, I was looking at the 110 but current pace would, I think, be useful. I didn't realise it didn't show it.

It's a present for my GF, I already have a 405 which has plenty of features but an arse of an interface so want to avoid something like that.

I have a Forerunner 210.

• Pros: you can upload to strava/garmin connect (well, I can't use garmin connect but that's due to my computer), does current pace along with various other paces, pretty simple to use, doesn't look like you have an overgrown calculator watch strapped to your arm, compatible with HR monitor and footpod if you have either of those.
  
• Cons: I returned one because the screen smashed when I fell over and landed on my palm, I returned another because it started deleting runs instead of saving them, the screen fogs up sometimes.
  
  

I've never tried it on a dog but if anyone would be willing to lend me a dog I would try it out, in the interests of science of course.

The lack of realtime live pace is a deliberate decision from Garmin. I believe they found that inexperienced runners were bamboozled by realtime pace as that metric can jump around a lot, so it only shows the average pace for that lap (km)*. That said my GF now uses my old 310 and she says she does prefer having the live data.

Either way it doesn't matter much to Moz, she's not too much of a clock watcher...

*I never worked out if it was a rolling km or if it simply began recalculating each pace in line with each new km run.

Oh yeah and the 210 has colour options! Manly grey or girly green swirls.

I got the 110 because my 405 was pissing me off. The bezel thing just simply does not work with any hint of moisture around (either in the air or sweat). Also the metal buttons on my 405 all but stopped working (and they're a bit sharp, which isn't good for playing 5-a-side).

The Forerunner 15 might work, the manual for it says:-

"
Displaying Pace or Speed
You can change the type of pace and speed information that appears in the pace or speed data field.‍
1 Select > Run Options > Pace/Speed.‍
2 Select an option:
• Select Pace to display your current pace.‍
• Select Lap Pace to display the average pace for the current lap.‍
• Select Avg.‍ Pace to display the average pace for the current activity.‍
• Select Speed to display your current speed.‍
• Select Lap Speed to display the average speed for the current lap.‍
• Select Avg.‍ Speed to display the average speed for the current activity.‍
"

For the 110, not having current pace/speed (only average pace/speed) isn't too bad, I work more off my HR or just perceived effort, but the average is useful to keep an eye on and gives me a general idea of whether I'm slacking (or feeling the effects of previous workouts).

I don't know about any of the other brands, I've only ever used Garmin (eTrex H, Edge 705, Forerunner 405, Forerunner 110).